Topic: Is this a good graphic card for Litecoin mining? (AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 Graphics) (Read 19327 times)

Hi there, I have 3 XFX 7990's, Is there a good MB that will take all 3.

Thanks in Advance!!

why would it only use the power of one 7970?

does nobody have that one in action?

(btw: is 7970 more energy efficient hash/watt than 7950?)

One of the best GPU's out there,for gaming and mining. i prefer Nvidia anyway,and also AMD is going to relase 8000s series GPU soon.

Yes, but make sure you get a new (Nov 2013) one 2x wide with 2x 8-pin power, not the old one second hand 3x wide with 3x 8-pin power.

It's very cool and quiet.

Basically it's 2x 3Gb 7970s on a single card, using the power of a single 7970, if you want to work out the hash/watt performance.

I doubt you will find any GPU more efficient but still not profitable enough for Bitcoin even at BTC$400, Litecoin only.  

does anybody actually have a 7990 for mining litecoins?

I would really be interested in the Hash/Watt cause even if 7950s are cheap, they have less effective cooling (more noise) and take up lots of space, and price for 7990 is coming down as well.

I only aim for efficiency (power not money), but can't seem to find real information, just "I think/i heard sb. said.."..

anybody with hashrate and according power draw at the wall? (+ system spec)

Ok, i will buy two 7950 for now. 

Also if its only for mining you can try to find some cheap used 5870, their also bang for the money when mining if you can get them really cheap

In agreement with the general consensus above, get 7950's for mining, much better hash to cash ratio

Like I told you today, I think the best card for LTC mining is the 7950, you can buy 3 for the price of one 7990 and you will get more hash rate. If you could get them to work, as you know I'm having some problems...

This topic seemed to get pretty complex, but if you don't have an 7990 right now I don't recommend getting one as it is not the most cost effective on you can purchase. Stick with a 2 [7950s], however, another thing people did not take into account is if its not to expensive and your motherboard can only hold 1 slot then the 7990 will give you the best hash rate/slot so that is also something you might want to take into account, as it may be more expensive but cheaper in cost and electricity wise than getting a whole new motherboard setup because your current one can only hold one. Just throwing that out there:)

Oh - thats for LTC which you are mining btw.  You also have to run it for a while to gather the initial cost back, but if you're going to mine, you might as well go all the way!

I use the 7870s for BTC as the price for me is 50% more, but even when i overclock the 7950s from 850 to 1000, I'm still only getting an extra $0.90 a month so the initial cost isn't worth it for me.
However if I were to never touch BTC I would get the 7950s.  If I don't bother building or getting an ASIC in the future and want to move to LTC, then any future cards will probably be 7950s as they shine for LTC.

It depends on the cost you can get them for. 
According to this:
https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Mining-hardware-comparison
you will get around 550 to 600 for the 7950, and around 380 to 420 for 7870.  The power consumption though is around 200 tpd for the 7950, but would probably run lower when mining.  It's TPD is only 12.5% higher than that of the 7870 so it depends on how much you can get it for.
If its running 40-50% faster, and only taking 12% more power, and you can get it for a decent price (no more than 1.5 times the cost of a 7870) pick one up!

7870's vs 7950s, the 7950s are better. (so thats three 7950s and zero 7990s and zero 7870s)

I started with "AMD Radeon™ HD 7990 Graphics"...
Two people said: 7950
And one said: 7870

Which would be the better?

gigabyte 7950

Humm, thanks for the "big" response, I think I will buy the same as you: "7870" is this a good investment?

i wish i could find one i would buy a few.

It would depend on how much yhou can purchase one for, how much it costs to run compared to how much it can mine.

There is a comparison list here (also has config/command lines for cgminer running scrypt etc)
https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Mining-hardware-comparison
the 7990x2 is two 7990 strapped side by side.

over here I'm about to pick up a 7870 for $200AUD
If I were to get a 7990 that would set me back $1350AUD
So basically I should expect 6.75 times the performance at that price.
From the above link, it seems that the 7870 does around 400m#/s, whilst the 7990x2 does about 2200 to 2300.  so a 7990x1 should dig up around 1100m#/s.  I would say stock would be around 900m#/s.
That is 2.75x the rate of a 7870

Then comes power effiency
Power in australia costs $0.27AUD kWh, ($0.30USD kWh).
I think in the USA its around $0.17USD kWhb

I mine BTC, which consumes less power to mine per hash rate than LTC.
My 7870 pulls 404mhs at around 110kWh to 120kWh at 80% efficiency (bronze corsair power supply running at around 25% load.
For LTC this will be higher - I'd estimate around 140kWh as its TPD is around 160kWh (so reduce that down).  LTC mining requires ram, whilst in BTC we can downclock the ram as its not really important (BTC/SHA256 relies upon integer arrithmatic, but not much data transfer, LTC/Scrypt relies upon data throughput aswell, so you will generally want fast ram)
So 7870 @ 400m#/s @140kWh for $200

the 7990 is rated by AMD to require a 750kWh power suppy however youd probably kill that pretty fast as its TPD is 555watts, and if your motherboard sits at idle and even if you have a 35W chip, you are still at 590/750 so you would have a pretty inefficient power consumption.  If you were mining bitcoins with downclocked ram you might pull the card down to 300watts, but for litecoiin my guess is you would be pulling 350watts maybe - especially when you overclock it to reach 1100m#/s, possibly 1200m#/s at 400 watts  on a 750kWh powersupply.

So 7990 @ 1200#/s @ 400watts for $1350

Comparing the two, in Australia you would be crazy to purchase a 7990 unless you only had one PCIe slot.
Even then you'd be better off buying a new motherboard - or taking a holiday.

I think from what I've read, a 7990 is around $900usd overseas?  and 7880s are $250 or something.
In that case, it would still not make sense as you are still only getting 3x the performance, at more than 3x the cost, and more than 3 times the power consumption.

You cuold be better getting 7970s.
Again, in Australia for bitcoining, it doesn't work out either due to the increased power and cost (they start at around $380) but only produce about 1.5 to 1.7 times the m#/s.   However they use about 1.5x the power so m#h/s they come out equal to slightly ahead.  We still have to make up an extra $60 of profit for that card to make it worth while though.

However there is also the resell value.   7970's and 7990s should hold their value longer than 7870s.  I'm still getting 7870s as at the end I'd probably use them for gaming anyways.

Please not I started typing this before there were anyreplies - I just got the:
Warning - while you were typing 5 new replies have been posted. You may wish to review your post.
so I haven't taken into account any of the previous replies.

Here is a list of cards with their respective mining speeds

https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/wiki/Mining-hardware-comparison

I assumed he had one and thus it would be good to use to mine with.

There are definitely more cost effective hardware to purchase

Man i would recomend you to buy 2 7950 instead 1 7990, you can mine more with this 2 than the 7990, also cheaper.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PowerColor-AX7990-6GBD5-2DHJ-Radeon-HD-7990-6GB-384-bit-x2-GDDR5-PCI-Express-3-0-/171033231601?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item27d26000f1